(I) Prelude
"Shadows of shadows passing. It is now 1831, and as always I am
absorbed with a delicate thought. It is how poetry has indefinite
sensations, to which end music is inessential. Since the comprehension
of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception, music, when combined
with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea is simply music.
Without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes
carcase, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment
motionless."